Charlotte-Douglas Airport (CLT) Expansion

[Professor]

1 hour ago, Temeteron said:

I am a Flight attendant for AA (based in Chicago at the moment) and I can’t tell you how many times I hear flight attendants say “oh I hate Charlotte!”.  They say it because they hate the airport not necessarily because of the city.  A lot of them avoid getting work trips to CLT.  But I just find it sad because it prevents them from seeing such a beautiful city.  Another thing that bugs me is a lot of times when I have Charlotte layovers (I’m from Charlotte by the way),  a lot of the flight attendants only walk one block from the hotel and then they say Charlotte is boring.  I’m like dude…..come on….SMH

Don't worry about them. We don't have a shortage or a quota on morons, and we don't need more. Just go along with them.  They will just complain about everything so you can't fix it.  I'm not saying that lots of hotels in the airport area are in screwed up areas, but we certainly aren't alone. They must not realize that airport areas are usually low rent areas. 

Edited March 26 by Professor

[Temeteron]

4 minutes ago, Professor said:

Don't worry about them. We don't have a shortage or a quota on morons, and we don't need more. Just go along with them.  They will just complain about everything so you can't fix it.  I'm not saying that lots of hotels in the airport area are in screwed up areas, but we certainly aren't alone. They must not realize that airport areas are usually low rent areas. 

We actually have two uptown hotels, one Southpark hotel, and at least 3 or 4 airport hotels that we use.  But even the uptown ones they still complain. Oh well

[DonkeyKong]

I had some vendors come into Charlotte yesterday from Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Detroit and they all commented how nice our airport is.  I didn't solicit any feedback from them on their thoughts...came out in the course of our conversation.  A, B, and E at peek travel times can be a mess, but the facilities and amenities are above average.

[kermit]

While I don't really share her opinion on these things, my daughter regularly flies home from BWI. Every trip she raves about how low stress and efficient BWI is (granted she is using the relatively quiet AA concourse), and constantly botches about CLT, crowding and inefficiency. -Every trip- she's gotta tell me how much she hates CLT and loves BWI.

[my kid is 23 and rapidly approaching being a fully-formed human, but I feel like this complaining is the last vestige of her teenagedom].

Edited March 27 by kermit

[Professor]

I know some hotels out near the airport are bad and in precarious areas, but uptown and South Park should be a treat for them unless they are just don't adapt to places that aren't their hometown or usual environment.  Some people just aren't outgoing and are never adaptive or happy. Their problem. As far as the airport, I think it is as good as any large U.S. airport, better than most. Yea, it gets busy, but that is what makes it prosperous.  Charlotte airport has  what was the the second best USO in the U.S. That is a plus for veterans and those on active duty. 

[CLT2014]

CLT needs to pressure AA to agree to a much more $$$ master lease agreement and figure out how to fund the rebuild of Concourse B and C ASAP. It will be painful. It will be expensive. AA will not like it and will kick and scream (just like their concerns with the Chicago O'Hare replacement terminal)... they will probably threaten to move flights to other hubs saying CLT no longer makes financial sense... but it needs to happen.

AA is just kicking the can down the road right now by packing more and more people into those aging concourses.... B is doing an average of 8.4 departures per day from those 16 gates... that's 135 daily flights on AA at Concourse B... . If AA wants to run that kind of volume through the concourse, it needs to be bigger. 

I don't know what the private discussions are between CLT management and AA. It is a symbiotic relationship, but I'd imagine CLT often feels like AA has the upper hand in negotiations (threatening to cut flying by 40% and routing over other hubs, et.) as they'd clearly be the tenant in a replacement to B and C and the most impacted by operational inefficiencies during construction. If AA went away completely as a hub here and we were the size of RDU... you could just shut down B, C, and E completely and operate out of the nicer A concourses and Concourse D and more than meet demand for a city our size that is not a hub with ~45 to 50 gates. 

Edited March 26 by CLT2014

[Temeteron]

21 minutes ago, CLT2014 said:

CLT needs to pressure AA to agree to a much more $$$ master lease agreement and figure out how to fund the rebuild of Concourse B and C ASAP. It will be painful. It will be expensive. AA will not like it and will kick and scream (just like their concerns with the Chicago O'Hare replacement terminal)... they will probably threaten to move flights to other hubs saying CLT no longer makes financial sense... but it needs to happen.

AA is just kicking the can down the road right now by packing more and more people into those aging concourses.... B is doing an average of 8.4 departures per day from those 16 gates... that's 135 daily flights on AA at Concourse B... . If AA wants to run that kind of volume through the concourse, it needs to be bigger. 

I don't know what the private discussions are between CLT management and AA. It is a symbiotic relationship, but I'd imagine CLT often feels like AA has the upper hand in negotiations (threatening to cut flying by 40% and routing over other hubs, et.) as they'd clearly be the tenant in a replacement to B and C and the most impacted by operational inefficiencies during construction. If AA went away completely as a hub here and we were the size of RDU... you could just shut down B, C, and E completely and operate out of the nicer A concourses and Concourse D and more than meet demand for a city our size that is not a hub with ~45 to 50 gates. 

Girl AA wouldn’t go nowhere.  They value Charlotte too much.  And I’m not so sure they’d be able to find a city that would be a good alternative.  Maybe Nashville? Doubt it though.  

[gman430]

21 hours ago, Vitamin_N said:

A recent thread on Reddit entitled "Worst Airport in America?" drew a bunch of upvotes and comments. I'll let you guess which airport they're talking about.

I guess it’s a good thing I fly Delta through ATL or DTW (especially DTW) out of GSP instead of American through CLT then.  

Edited March 26 by gman430

[xapostrophe]

If anyone thinks that AA wouldn't abandon CLT I would like to show you PIT.   To a lesser extent the shell of what we do in PHL these days.  ALSO if you think CLT bathrooms are gross....go check out the bathrooms in PHL. Was there yesterday, literally graffiti carved into the toilet seats and they have painted the stalls walls doors everything in this taupe color that reminds me of what a prison looks like on TV.

CLT is definitely over crowded, no doubt, but it's a balancing act for the city and the airline.      

[Temeteron]

54 minutes ago, xapostrophe said:

If anyone thinks that AA wouldn't abandon CLT I would like to show you PIT.   To a lesser extent the shell of what we do in PHL these days.  ALSO if you think CLT bathrooms are gross....go check out the bathrooms in PHL. Was there yesterday, literally graffiti carved into the toilet seats and they have painted the stalls walls doors everything in this taupe color that reminds me of what a prison looks like on TV.

CLT is definitely over crowded, no doubt, but it's a balancing act for the city and the airline.      

Yeah PHL is disgusting.  I was based there last summer and didn’t like it at all.  As far as comparing what happened to Pittsburgh vs. what could happen to Charlotte, it’s not a fair comparison.  Charlotte is continuing to grow tremendously, unlike Pittsburgh which lost a lot of its population over the past 30 years.  Yes a lot of our traffic is connectors but still.  In any case, I hope that AA invests more money into space cuz those hallways are ridiculous.  I’m very happy with how the lobby is turning out though! 

[KJHburg]

2 hours ago, gman430 said:

I guess it’s a good thing I fly Delta through ATL or DTW (especially DTW) out of GSP instead of American through CLT then.  

Oh yeah Atlanta is never ever crowded or packed on those subway trains underneath connecting the gates.  

[kermit]

13 hours ago, xapostrophe said:

If anyone thinks that AA wouldn't abandon CLT I would like to show you PIT.  

I am certainly not suggesting CLT’s hub status is permanent, but I am not sure this is a fair comparison. PIT seemed pretty close to the stronger hub at PHL. It was also in a region surrounded by competing hubs in Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati and Cleveland (I assume this would drive down revenue). Charlotte’s relative location is pretty critical to AA operations as the airline's only viable SE connection point (Miami is too peripheral to be a substitute). I can’t see AA walking away from a Southeastern hub, and I can’t see any viable substitutes for CLT:

• RDU no longer has any hub infrastructure, and is a smaller market.
• Atlanta is clearly taken
• Nashville is now a tourism / LCC market like Orlando.
• Birmingham is still just Birmingham
• Memphis wishes it was Birmingham.

I just can’t see a viable alternative for AA, and I would bet that United would look at building a CLT hub if something bizarre happened to AA.

I have not heard how the CLT-LGA banker traffic has held up post-pandemic, but I would also cite that revenue source as something no other SE metro can  match. The SC/NC - Germany corporate connection also seems like a pretty robust route.

Edited March 27 by kermit

[joshuavmc]

If, and that's a BIG, IF AA were to threaten or downsize their CLT hub , United would be meeting with CLT officials the next day.  They would be happy to finally have a true southeast hub. 

AA and CLT just needs to bite the bullet and replace B & C. 

[LKN704]

I'm sorry, but at this stage the notion that AA would abandon its assets at CLT in a situation similar to PIT is absurd. 

The Pittsburgh hub was located in an economically depressed area that was over-saturated with unnecessary hubs - see Cleveland and Cincinnati. All three hubs dated from an era when hubs were determined only by geography, rather than local demand. PIT was heavily dependent on turboprop flights to smaller, economically depressed markets. Airlines eventually came to terms that a lot of these smaller stations weren't economically viable (Oil City or Altoona anyone?) and the ones that were viable to serve (say Erie) could easily be served from stronger hubs that weren't in the same geographic region. Once you began to cut those smaller stations (a lot were to EAS markets), it made little sense to continue to feed passengers flying from say Albany to San Diego when you had two other hubs (CLT, PHL) that were in larger, more economically prosperous regions that could easily pick up the traffic. 

US was going to eventually terminate their Pittsburgh hub operations regardless of whether 9/11 occurred - it simply sped up the process. Mainline flight departures at Pittsburgh actually began to decline several years before 9/11 in the mid 1990s. 

It's true that Pittsburgh's operating costs were high, but the hub was so well designed that most carriers reclaimed the costs in terms of efficiencies. 

US/AA can sit here and publicly say that the primary reason for Pittsburgh's closure was its high operating cost, but at the end of the day that simply isn't true. 

[Professor]

17 hours ago, kermit said:

While I don't really share her opinion on these things, my daughter regularly flies home from BWI. Every trip she raves about how low stress and efficient BWI is (granted she is using the relatively quiet AA concourse), and constantly botches about CLT, crowding and inefficiency. -Every trip- she's gotta tell me how much she hates CLT and loves BWI.

[my kid is 23 and rapidly approaching being a fully-formed human, but I feel like this complaining as the last vestiges of her teenagedom].

I believe you are correct in your assessment. Fortunately, our kids generally start seeing reality, forming their own opinions, and questioning their former peer and college instructor driven ideologies the closer they get to 40. 

Edited March 27 by Professor

[gman430]

On 3/26/2024 at 8:07 PM, KJHburg said:

Oh yeah Atlanta is never ever crowded or packed on those subway trains underneath connecting the gates.  

I have never had a single issue with boarding those trains. They run very frequently. Maybe I have just gotten lucky??? And I know Atlanta isn’t the greatest airport there is but I also don’t feel like it’s as bad as some people make it out to be. Their international terminal especially is nice. 

Edited March 28 by gman430

[LKN704]

On 3/26/2024 at 9:42 PM, LKN704 said:

I'm sorry, but at this stage the notion that AA would abandon its assets at CLT in a situation similar to PIT is absurd. 

The Pittsburgh hub was located in an economically depressed area that was over-saturated with unnecessary hubs - see Cleveland and Cincinnati. All three hubs dated from an era when hubs were determined only by geography, rather than local demand. PIT was heavily dependent on turboprop flights to smaller, economically depressed markets. Airlines eventually came to terms that a lot of these smaller stations weren't economically viable (Oil City or Altoona anyone?) and the ones that were viable to serve (say Erie) could easily be served from stronger hubs that weren't in the same geographic region. Once you began to cut those smaller stations (a lot were to EAS markets), it made little sense to continue to feed passengers flying from say Albany to San Diego when you had two other hubs (CLT, PHL) that were in larger, more economically prosperous regions that could easily pick up the traffic. 

US was going to eventually terminate their Pittsburgh hub operations regardless of whether 9/11 occurred - it simply sped up the process. Mainline flight departures at Pittsburgh actually began to decline several years before 9/11 in the mid 1990s. 

It's true that Pittsburgh's operating costs were high, but the hub was so well designed that most carriers reclaimed the costs in terms of efficiencies. 

US/AA can sit here and publicly say that the primary reason for Pittsburgh's closure was its high operating cost, but at the end of the day that simply isn't true. 

To better demonstrate this, I created this map on the Great Circle Mapper:

Roughly 30 cities lost either air service completely or exited the US/AA system with the wind down/closure of the PIT hub. All of these cities were served entirely with turboprop aircraft at the time of their termination. Once these cities were gone, it made little sense to keep the hub open to chase low yielding connecting traffic that could be served over PHL, CLT, (and to some extent) DCA. 

CLT doesn't have a similar issue. 

[KJHburg]

Not an April Fools day joke this is for real CLT has a mini horse wandering around the terminal now. 

Not an April Fools’ joke. Therapy horse roams the terminal of Charlotte airport (yahoo.com)

and yes it had to be screened by TSA

Edited April 1 by KJHburg

[jthomas]

It's Li'l Sebastian!!!

[KJHburg]

""Sullenberger Aviation Museum, the premier aviation museum of the Southeast, is pleased to announce that it will officially open its doors to the public on Saturday, June 1, at 10 a.m. Capt. C.B. “Sully” Sullenberger, who, along with his crew, maneuvered the famed “Miracle on the Hudson” landing – and for whom the Museum is named – will be in Charlotte to celebrate during a week of opening activities.

The Museum will be open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 4:30 p.m., except Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day. A limited number of tickets for opening day (June 1) are now available for purchase at a special rate of $5 per ticket. Tickets for all other dates through Labor Day have also been released for sale. Regular admission prices are $24 for adults; $20 for seniors, veterans, military, and educators; and $18 for students (ages 5 to 17). Members and children under five are always free. Tickets can be purchased here: https://www.sullenbergeraviation.org/buy-tickets/.

In addition, memberships for the Museum’s Frequent Flyer Program are now available. Annual membership costs range from $75 for an Individual membership to $200 for a Family Plus package, which includes free admission for two adults, a caregiver, and up to six children. Perks of membership include free admission for 12 months, free parking, early registration for camps and workshops, and discounts on select events, programs, and merchandise.""

[xapostrophe]

Apparently the airport has purchased the tail section of an old AA md80 for display somewhere in the new terminal.  Should be interesting

[gman430]

Viva Aerobus will add flights to Charlotte (CLT). The airline will begin offering a Cancun (CUN) to Charlotte (CLT) route starting May 25 with 1x weekly flights:

VB360 Depart CUN 5:20 PM Arrive CLT 9:35 PM

VB361 Depart CLT 9:20 AM Arrive CUN 11:30 AM

Edited April 5 by gman430

[LKN704]

I believe the flights are essentially public charters that are open for scheduled passenger bookings. Viva Aerobus operated into Charlotte pre-pandemic on a similar schedule (once weekly on Sunday) on behalf of Vacation Express. I'm willing to bet a similar arrangement is in place again. 

[KJHburg]

From Concord airport and Biz Journal:

""Avelo Airlines is bumping up service on its only nonstop route at Concord-Padgett Regional Airport. Flights to Tweed-New Haven Airport in southern Connecticut will increase to four times a week from twice weekly during the peak summer travel season.

The ultra-low-cost carrier said yesterday that high demand led to the flight increase between the two markets.""

[KJHburg]

""Charlotte Douglas International Airport CEO Haley Gentry said yesterday that the airport expects to surpass 60 million passengers this year. If those projections are met, the airport would break its annual record of 53.4 million set in 2023 by 13%.

Gentry shared estimates of passenger counts as part of an airport update and budget presentation to City Council. Charlotte Douglas, or CLT, already ranks among the world’s 10 busiest airports and is home to American Airlines Group Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAL) second-largest hub.

“Right now, Charlotte is the fastest-growing airport if you look at available seats on the market in the country,” Gentry said. “And that is really amazing.”""

American Airlines driving CLT growth as airport eyes record year - Charlotte Business Journal (bizjournals.com)

this makes me think of this: Nobody flies through CLT because it is too crowded.

""Referring to estimates of 60 million passengers this year, Gentry told council, “That’s the punchline of this whole presentation. It really is.” A year ago, the airport’s forecast anticipated reaching 60 million passengers in five years. Translation: They’re way ahead of schedule (words rarely uttered at any airport).

She said that American Airlines has delivered on public proclamations to invest most heavily in the company’s hubs at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and CLT.

“The hub is driving the growth,” she said.""